Part 1 - Chapter 7 - Page 2

"This is clean beyond me, Mr. Holmes. We saw you when we
returned from Tunbridge Wells last night, and you were in general
agreement with our results. What has happened since then to give
you a completely new idea of the case?"

"Well, since you ask me, I spent, as I told you that I would,
some hours last night at the Manor House."

"Well, what happened?"

"Ah, I can only give you a very general answer to that for the
moment. By the way, I have been reading a short but clear and
interesting account of the old building, purchasable at the
modest sum of one penny from the local tobacconist."

Here Holmes drew a small tract, embellished with a rude engraving
of the ancient Manor House, from his waistcoat pocket.

"It immensely adds to the zest of an investigation, my dear Mr.
Mac, when one is in conscious sympathy with the historical
atmosphere of one's surroundings. Don't look so impatient; for I
assure you that even so bald an account as this raises some sort
of picture of the past in one's mind. Permit me to give you a
sample. 'Erected in the fifth year of the reign of James I, and
standing upon the site of a much older building, the Manor House
of Birlstone presents one of the finest surviving examples of the
moated Jacobean residence--' "

"You are making fools of us, Mr. Holmes!"

"Tut, tut, Mr. Mac!--the first sign of temper I have detected in
you. Well, I won't read it verbatim, since you feel so strongly
upon the subject. But when I tell you that there is some account
of the taking of the place by a parliamentary colonel in 1644, of
the concealment of Charles for several days in the course of the
Civil War, and finally of a visit there by the second George, you
will admit that there are various associations of interest
connected with this ancient house."

"I don't doubt it, Mr. Holmes; but that is no business of ours."

"Is it not? Is it not? Breadth of view, my dear Mr. Mac, is one
of the essentials of our profession. The interplay of ideas and
the oblique uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary
interest. You will excuse these remarks from one who, though a
mere connoisseur of crime, is still rather older and perhaps more
experienced than yourself."

"I'm the first to admit that," said the detective heartily. "You
get to your point, I admit; but you have such a deuced
round-the-corner way of doing it."

"Well, well, I'll drop past history and get down to present-day
facts. I called last night, as I have already said, at the Manor
House. I did not see either Barker or Mrs. Douglas. I saw no
necessity to disturb them; but I was pleased to hear that the
lady was not visibly pining and that she had partaken of an
excellent